Christians 'are easiest target for TV satire'

Electronic Telegraph ^ | 29/12/2003 | Tom Leonard, Media Editor

[mountaineer]

Here it is:

Jamie Oliver has received a roasting from TV watchdogs after an outburst on his Channel 4 show. Oliver landed himself in hot water for an episode of Jamie's Kitchen, in which he worked to turn 15 jobless youngsters into top-class chefs.

During one encounter, an exasperated Oliver blurted out "Jesus f Christ" - and five viewers complained about his language.

Today the Independent Television Commission ruled that the program had breached TV guidelines. "The ITC took the view that this particular expression is deeply offensive to Christians and requires a high degree of justification, which it did not feel was present on this occasion," their report stated.

"The ITC also noted that the program began immediately after the watershed." Channel 4 said it had been imperative to show a "frank and candid portrait of Jamie Oliver" and to let viewers see "the reality and pressures of the challenge facing him".

A warning had been given at the start of the program, a spokesman added. source

[Paul Atreides]

Yet, how many yearly reports do we see, in which Follywood is taken to task for lack of minority advancement? How many billions do they rake in, that don't go to help the homeless? How many could have built children's hospitals for the same amount of money they just spent on their sixth wedding?

Don't you just love it when the most dysfunctional collection of human beings on this entire planet purports to tell others how to live?

[MotleyGirl70]

Paul "The Forehead" Begala is that you?

In any case Buh-Bye troll!

[NeoCaveman]

why would these people make fun of christians; there's nothing funny about hypocrisy.

Hey there is always room for one more hypocrite. Get thee to Church.

[MotleyGirl70]

Did you derive your name from Bill Clinton's favorite scifi porn movie?

ROTFLMBO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Gil4]

"there's nothing funny about hypocrisy."

Au contraire - I have a hard time keeping myself from laughing out loud when I hear muslins say, "Islam is a religion of peace."

P.S. - We normally prefer it when you wait until at least your second or third post before you start mouthing off.

[July 4th]

I wouldn't call this making fun of Christians. There's much worse than a quick phrase like that - it's when the premise of a whole show is religiously offensive. Note that the US version of Jamie's Kitchen was "bleeped," so we didn't hear the comment here in the states. There was a bunch of foul language in the series, and it all got cut. (Chefs working in a kitchen under time pressure and heat...yeah, some f-bombs are gonna drop).

[NeoCaveman]

Did you derive your name from Bill Clinton's favorite scifi porn movie?

Shafts a bad mother.....
Shut your mouth.
I'm talkin' about Shaft.

[Arpege92]

"Did you derive your name from Bill Clinton's favorite scifi porn movie?"

Better than that....Cosmic Shaft was in the scifi porn movie!!!!!

[Gil4]

muslins muslims

When it's almost 3 a.m., the spelling just goes out the window. G'night all.

[nothingnew]

Don't you just love it when the most dysfunctional collection of human beings on this entire planet purports to tell others how to live?

The best response to these people is a great big horselaugh. They really reeeaaally hate that! Believe me...they really hate that and leaves them deflated.

FMCDH

[Paul Atreides]

Oh yeah, and gave all the earnings to HillPAC.

[Ciexyz]

btt

[rface]

Did you derive your name from Bill Clinton's favorite scifi porn movie?

Cosmic Shaft is Bill's pet name for his "formerly bent unit". Back in the old days - before his "knee surgery" all the Presidential interns used to refer to it as "twisted shaft", but Bill thought naming his penis "Cosmic Shaft" was way cooler.

BTW - the Secret Service like this name too, and it was the code word for President Clinton for his last year in office

[mountaineer]

I wouldn't call it making fun of Christians, either, though I don't doubt it offends God. Using the Lord's name as a profanity or curseword is done so much, everywhere we go, it seems we're practically deaf to it any more.

[InvisibleChurch]

They won't be laughing so much on Judgement Day.

[rface]

P.S. - We normally prefer it when you wait until at least your second or third post before you start mouthing off.

Is this another new rule?? First we have the new OPUS rule, and now we have this new 2nd or 3rd post rule?
(sigh)...I never get these memos.

[suzyq5558]

Well prairie, If you weren't stirring the pot, you at least took the lid off and peeked inside:)

[Gorzaloon]

There is nothing about their beliefs, traditions or religious practices that encourages ridicule.

(Just kidding.)

Why did the Prophet (PBUH) cross the road?

He was hurrying to the KINDERGARTEN to get his bride.

(Now they're gonna kill me, etc, blah blah...)

[atomic conspiracy]

The past 40 years of political and cultural history have been an almost complete fraud. Pop-culture, culture itself in the age of saturation media, is all about selling ads.

In the early 1960s, Doyle-Dane-Bernbach, among others, discovered an unbeatable gimmick for doing this; the trappings and superficial appearance of rebellion and non-conformity. Since this is actually a type of conformity itself (as many have noted) the idea is not to encourage real non-conformity but a comfortably marketable and carefully focused illusion of it.

Often as not, the object of this pseudo-rebellion is a strawman, a pop-culture caricature of some alleged oppression rather than the thing itself. This is the real origin of pop-culture's contempt for Christianity. It is the historic majority religion and a natural subject of rebellion for the simple-minded, the impressionable, and the emotionally needy; that is, the most rigid of pop-culture conformists.

Islam, on the other hand, is exotic and relatively unfamiliar to this audience, and has the additional cachet provided by an aura of menace and violence.

That it is one of the most rigid systems ever devised does not matter to those who need not live under it. Promoting it is superficially rebellious and outrageous, and therefore indispensable to those for whom pop-culture conformity is a religion in and of itself.

The Conquest of Cool by Thomas M. Frank documents and analyzes the relationships among advertising, pop-culture, and radical politics. It is a devastating indictment and quite possibly the most important book of the past 10 years. It was written before 9-11, but later events have only multiplied the urgency and relevance of its message.